The use of the gasoline powered lawn mower, especially the so-called "self-propelled" machine has greatly reduced the amount of manual labor involved in one phase of lawn care. As Americans continue to find more creative uses for their leisure time, however, the time required to be devoted to proper lawn maintenance is spent ever more reluctantly. Unfortunately, proper lawn care demands additional and appropriately timed maintenance than mere mowing. The lawn should be fertilized spring and fall. Pre-emergent weed control chemicals may have to be applied. Some lawns may need applications of crab grass and dandelion inhibitors and in many cases insect control chemicals to fight chinch bugs may be necessary. All of these operations require additional hours of labor that many people would rather spend elsewhere. Heretofore, each of the aforementioned tasks has had to be undertaken independently of and in addition to the weekly mowing job in an effective manner. Many home owners have therefore given up the effort and have employed professional lawn care companies to take over the care of their lawns.
It would be of great advantage and convenience if one or more of the lawn care operations involving the dispensing of lawn care chemicals could be combined with the tasks of mowing. Accordingly, we have devised an improved lawn mower which, particularly when the new lightweight lawn care chemicals are employed, can dispense these chemicals in an efficient and convenient manner which will neither interfere with the cutting of the grass nor collection of the cuttings, which confines the distribution of chemicals to a determinable area of the lawn and which has a chemical hopper that will not require refilling any more frequently than the intervals during which the lawn mower must be stopped to empty the grass catcher.